Sermon: Risen In-Deed

Texts:

Luke 24:36b-48; Acts 3:1-16

Date: April 30, 2006

Rev. Dee Eisenhauer, EagleHarbor Congregational Church

            I know it’s been a couple of weeks, but let’s see if y’all remember a historic call and response we employed on Easter Sunday.  I say, “Christ is risen,” and you say… “Christ is risen indeed.” 

            That’s called, in churchspeak, “the Easter Acclamation.”  It’s been around for centuries.  Mostly you save it for Easter Sunday itself, but one of the teachings of the historic church is that every Sunday is a little Easter.  Even the Sundays during Lent, which don’t officially count as among the forty days of Lent because they are supposed to be little Easters.  I told this to one of the youth late in Lent this year, and told her that one of the church’s traditions is that you are supposed to get a day off from your Lenten discipline on Sundays, and it seemed like she was a little bummed out that she hadn’t known that a few weeks earlier, because she had taken on a pretty tough discipline.  So now you know.  Every Sunday is a little Easter, and we ought to be prepared to respond any time of the year to the Easter acclamation, should it come our way.  Christ is risen! He is risen indeed.

            It’s sort of a quaint thing to say.  It’s a good phrase to have in our repertoire, if for no other reason than its history, linking us with generations of Christians all the way back to the early church.  It could be no more than a rote formula, though, like the countless slogans drilled into our minds by advertisers (e.g. “Sleep Country USA—why buy a mattress anywhere else?”)  One question we might ask ourselves is whether the Easter acclamation is merely a slogan, or whether it is in any way a statement of truth as we see it?

            One day a teacher was asking the kids in her fourth grade class to name the person whom they considered the greatest human being alive in the world today -- and the responses were quick in forthcoming and also quite varied.
         A little boy spoke up and said, "I think it's Tiger Woods.  He’s the
greatest golfer in the world, ever." A little girl said, "I think it's the
Pope because he cares for people and doesn't get paid for it at all."
Another little girl said, "I think it's President Bush because he's the
President of the United States and the United States is the greatest country
in the world." And yet another little boy said, "I think it's my mom because
she takes care of me and my brother." Most of the kids cited one
celebrity or another. But then it was little Donnie's turn.
         Without even hesitating, when the teacher asked him the question, he
replied, "Well I think it’s Jesus Christ because he loves everybody and is
always ready to help them." Mrs. Thompson smiled and said, "Well I certainly like your answer Donnie, because I'm a Christian too and I also admire Jesus.  But there's one slight thing that's wrong.  I said the greatest
living person, and of course Jesus lived and died almost two thousand years
ago.  Do you have another name in mind?" Donnie’s simple response: "Oh no, Mrs. Thompson, that's not right at all.  Jesus Christ is alive! He lives in me right now!"

            The Easter acclamation isn’t just a slogan.  It’s an affirmation of a deep and mysterious truth.  Christ is living within people, between people, dwelling in hearts and relationships.  It’s a rather amazing thing to announce to a skeptical world—maybe even a stretch to say it to ourselves with the kind of conviction Donnie seemed to have.  It’s difficult to grasp, much less proclaim.  Luke’s gospel says the disciples who were huddled together in a locked room were looking right at Christ in this new, post-resurrection form and still had a hard time believing.  They were disbelieving in their joy, the text says.  The presence of a risen Christ seemed too good to be true, even to those close friends. 

            They did seem eventually to adjust to the new reality, the presence of Christ in a new form, especially after the dramatic outpouring of the Holy Spirit we will remember and celebrate at Pentecost.  They pick up the ministry of Christ right where they left off before the crucifixion.  This story of healing the lame man is intriguing.  By calling on the power of Jesus—implied by their saying “in the name of Jesus Christ”—Peter and John somehow become vessels of the same kind of healing ability Jesus had in his earthly ministry.  The bystanders are all agog, of course.  Peter connects the dots for them between the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and this ongoing healing presence.  Christ has been raised from the dead.  They are the witnesses, they say to the crowd.

            In this context, to be a witness turns out to be more than a person who has seen something occur.  The witnesses haven’t just seen the risen Christ;  in some unfathomable way they have been the risen Christ.  After the Spirit of Christ had broken loose from the body of Jesus, it was now available to empower the disciples in many ways and places. 

            I read in one of my periodicals something I’d never heard before about the Easter acclamation.  The last word in the acclamation is a rather strange, quaint word, “Indeed.”  We don’t say “indeed” all that much; it seems best suited on the lips of the kind of person who still wears a bow tie.  But when Christians first started saying “He is risen indeed” the word “indeed” was written as two words.  Christ is risen in deed.  For the first Christians, the reality of the resurrection came to them through action or deed.  You can see that happening in the story in the third chapter of Acts, when the lame man began to walk just as if Jesus himself had been there healing him.  In that deed, the risen Christ was present.

            We may still witness the presence of the risen Christ in deed in our era.  The deed may even be an action we ourselves carry out.  The potential occasions for the Spirit of Christ to show up is multiplied by the number of disciples who invite Christ to dwell within and between them. 

            To say this does not mean that all of us will become healers and miracle workers.  We may not be able to get a wheelchair bound beggar on the streets of Seattle out of his chair to go walking and leaping down First Avenue.  I believe that the spirit of Christ is present in ways appropriate and available to individual believers.  Just as water takes the shape of whatever vessel it is poured into, the spirit of Christ is poured into the unique shape of the lives of present day disciples.  As Henri Nouwen once wrote, “The imitation of Christ does not mean to live a life like Christ, but to live your life as authentically as Christ lived his.”

            Returning to the story of Peter and John and the lame man, the text says that the man fixed his attention on Peter and John as they were about to enter the temple, expecting to receive something from them.  What he expected, of course, was what he was always at that spot looking for, a few coins.  Peter says, “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.”  I don’t have silver and gold, but what I have, I give you.  Each disciple has something to give in the name of Jesus Christ.  As often as we give it, Christ is risen in deed.

            Preacher Juanita Austin writes about giving older brother a call one day during tax season.  He’s an accountant, and she knew he’d be up to his eyeballs in tax returns, and she figured he could use some encouragement from his little sister.  She asked him how he was doing.  “Just great,” he said.  “I’m loving this.”

            “Earl,” she said, “are we talking taxes here?  Are you seriously sleep deprived?  Should I call a doctor?”  He went on to explain how he had helped this widow on a pension claim all sorts of stuff she was well entitled to, but had no idea about.  He managed to increase her monthly income so that instead of barely scraping by she would be reasonably comfortable.  What he had—his knowledge about taxes combined with his compassion and desire for justice—he gave to her.  What I have, I give you.

            There is a nurse in Juanita’s Bible study.  She said that sometimes at the hospital when she is at work, her patients ask her if she is a Christian.  Her response: “Do I act like one?”  She knows that to claim to be a Christian is to give what she has—her skill to bring healing and health to the best of her ability.  What I have, I give you.

            Discipleship may be as unique as a thumbprint.  Christ is present in what we authentically give out of what we have and who we are.  We may find, as we meet other disciples of Christ, that we genuinely admire the form their discipleship has taken, that we are awe-struck witnessing the spirit of Christ in their deeds.  We may be led to emulate them.  And that may be appropriate, or it may not.  I love this episode in MountainsBeyondMountains by Tracy Kidder, which our book group just finished reading.  The book is the story of Paul Farmer, who is a doctor serving patients mainly in Haiti and who is also an advocate for change in the worldwide distribution of medical technologies.  He is quite an impressive person with boundless energy and incredible clarity about his personal mission in life.

            Early in his career he was introduced to a man in the Boston area who had made a lot of money in construction.  Tom White ended up giving a great deal of money over many years to fund Partners In Health, the agency that supports Dr. Farmer’s work.  When Dr. Farmer was in Boston, where he spent part of every year as a doctor in a Boston hospital, White would come and visit him.  He would drive to the hospital during lunchtime and buy sandwiches at the restaurant inside the hospital, and he and Farmer would eat them in White’s car.  One day White asked Farmer, who looked pale as usual, “You eatin’ enough?”

            “Oh, I’m fine,” said Farmer.

            “Need any money?”

            “No,” said Farmer.  “Well, maybe forty dollars?”

            White happened to have a wad of hundred-dollar bills in his pocket.  He tossed one into Farmer’s lap.  “You look hungry to me.”  Saying this, he felt impelled to reach into his pocket again.  He tossed another hundred to Farmer.  “Please, for God’s sake, eat,” he said, and to emphasize the point, he gave Farmer yet another hundred.

            Farmer looked down at the loot.  “Now I can tell you what happened last night.”  He’d gone into the home of an AIDS patient whom he had treated at the hospital and found out the man was about to be evicted.  “I signed my check over to him.”

            “Jeez, Paul, don’t you think that’s kind of impractical?”

            Farmer smiled.  “Well,” he said, “God sent you today.”

            Kidder goes on, “White often found himself running errands in Boston for projects in…[Haiti], picking up things like sinks and loading them into the trunk of his Mercedes.  (One load of sinks was for a new clinic.  The first clinic turned out to have been badly designed.  White paid to have it rebuilt.  He did this quietly, not asking for credit.  ‘Not even a plaque with his name in it,’ said Farmer.)

            “One time when they were together in Boston, White said, ‘You know, Paul, sometimes I’d like to chuck it all and work as a missionary with you in Haiti.’

            “Farmer thought for a while, then said, ‘In your particular case, that would be a sin.’”   You can see why, can’t you?  For Tom White, authentic discipleship was tied up with his talent at making money in the construction business and then generously passing it on to ministries of healing.  For some, discipleship is a direct, hands-on ministry like Dr. Farmer’s; for others, supporting such work with money and other means.  Christian vocation has less to do with the particular work than it has to do with the motivation behind whatever work one does.

              It is terribly important, whatever we do as disciples of Christ, to witness to the presence of the living spirit of Christ in deed as well as in speech or intention.  Being a witness is not optional; the question is whether we will be a good witness or a poor one.  As a young man, Mahatma Gandhi studied in London. After learning about Christianity, and after reading the Sermon on the Mount, he decided that Christianity was the most complete religion in the world. It was only later, when he lived with a Christian family in East India, that he changed his mind. In that household he discovered that the word rarely became flesh -- that the teaching of Jesus rarely became the reality of Jesus.  Well, we have something to say and to do about whether the teaching of Jesus becomes the reality of Jesus in our place and time. 

Christ is Risen!  Christ is risen in deed.  That, dearly beloved, depends upon you and me, as we live out our faith in deeds.

Nouwen, Henri The Wounded Healer Image Books, 1990

Kidder, Tracy Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World  New York: Random House, 2003, p. 94-95